


Spiralling

by turnedherbrain



Category: Black Mirror, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Stefan x Colin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 10:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17405429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnedherbrain/pseuds/turnedherbrain
Summary: Stefan spirals, but Colin’s there to pick him up. Or, making a different/happier ending for Stefan and Colin.





	Spiralling

‘What will it be then? Sugar Puffs, or Frosties?’ His dad stood in the middle of their bland kitchen, shaking the brightly-coloured cereal boxes like over-large maracas. ‘You know breakfast’s the most important meal of the day…!’

Stefan looked up blankly, not bothering to hide his weariness. ‘Yeah, dad. I know. You’ve told me a thousand times…’

‘Alright then. I’ll make the choice today. Frosties it is. ‘ _They’re grrrrreeeat!_ ’’ His dad smiled at his decisiveness, swivelling back towards the kitchen counter.

Stefan knew that he always chose Frosties anyway. He knew it was breakfast, then lunch, and dinner. He knew that night followed day in an unceasing cycle. He knew that the earth was round and eternally spinning in the orbit of a burning ball of gas and that beyond their galaxy, no-one really knew. All this knowledge was safety. It imposed order on chaos. It made sense. It was the exact opposite of what he was feeling right now, trying to get the game made on time.

 _Spiralling._ The sensation he felt, more and more, was of a spiralling.

It was either sheer vertigo: plunging into a void; or it was his mind expanding out into a vast consciousness. Whatever it was, he couldn’t get rid of the rapid swirls, like he was being tipped out to the far boundaries of the world.

…

On the way to the Tuckersoft offices for their final meeting, the nearly-perfect Bandersnatch demo tape nested like a bird’s eggshell in his bag, Stefan began to feel it even more. Passers-by looked at him with interest, then undisguised curiosity. He thought the sky was splitting open slowly, a darker ink spilling in rivulets into the blue. The pavement wasn’t straight: he saw it as if through a fish-eye lens, distorted and blurred at the edges, curving into an impossible crescent. Then: Falling, falling. Falling.

But he didn’t touch ground.

…

Bright light pierced his vision, cutting a tunnelled beam through the darkness.

‘Sorry about that,’ said someone, quite matter-of-factly.

‘Whaaa’?’ Stefan’s mouth felt padded inside, his tongue struggling to make a coherent syllable. The light halo that had barred his vision began to move away.

‘The light. I’m just checking if you’ve woken up properly.’ Spoken by. Fuuucckk. Colin Ritman? Colin. Ritman. Colin. Fucking. Ritman. What the fuucccckkkkkk.

‘Breathe, breathe… Just. Breathe. You’re OK. You’ve just woken up. This will take some getting used to.’ Colin’s voice came from what seemed far off, although he was merely a metre away.

‘What?’ was all Stefan was able to say, wadded with sensory overload, alternately hyperventilating and feebly trying to take in his surroundings.

‘Just. Sit down. That is… if you want to. You make all the choices here.’ Colin advised.

‘Where am I? Tell me… where the fuck. Am I?’ Stefan felt a strong urge to sit back down again. But it wasn’t like when he’d felt the urge to bite his fingernails, or hit his desk with frustration. He felt in control of himself: no longer pressed into binary choices.

‘OK. This will be a lot to take in.’ Colin sighed slightly, like he’d said this speech a thousand times before. He’d even considered producing a welcome video, or running a newcomers’ workshop, but that was far too corporate for him.

‘Mmmm hmmm,’ agreed Stefan, dumbfounded with anticipation.

‘So… you know when we met before, and you came to my flat that time? That… _many_ times… but to be honest that doesn’t really matter now. I told you about the possibilities of multiple realities: timelines that aren’t laid in a single direction, with a binary choice. Do you remember?’

‘Mmmmhmmm.’ Stefan echoed himself warily. He _did_ remember, but it was mixed up with all sorts of dreams and nightmares and visions.

‘So – this is one of the other worlds. Welcome to Pax,’ Colin tried to sound grandiose as he swept his arm towards the far window. Nothing like earth. Stefan gulped, feeling the reassuring solidity of the chair under him. ‘Pax means peace. Or it means passengers. Either way – Pax is a place I created for people to pass through. To feel at peace. Somewhere we can do whatever we want, without government surveillance in the name of security, or madmen becoming our overlords or… well, whatever, really.’ Colin looked a tiny bit satisfied with himself, but that wasn’t very cool, so he adjusted his multicoloured shirt and coughed slightly.

‘You made… **_this?!!_** ’ Stefan rose to his feet, and looked out of the window. He couldn’t keep the undisguised awe out of his voice. This was like… well, like one of Colin’s best games, if it had been allowed to run without a maximum kilobytes limit to hold it back. It was… bloody amazing.

‘Yes, well… this world… and other worlds actually.’ Colin shrugged – he took in praise like passing vapour and wafted it away again. ‘Look. I really hate to do this, but do you want some kind of… orientation, or something? Find your feet? Because that spiral… I mean, you took quite a nosedive there. I thought I could leave you with Kitty to walk you around the place. Bit more relaxed.’

‘What? Yes!’ Stefan grinned excitedly, pill-induced miasma slipping away and being replaced with a feeling of absolute joy. ‘Wait…’ he added, as Colin hit an Alt. key inlaid into a table. ‘Before the... tour: can I ask you something?’

‘Of course. Anything. Like I said: no limitations. We could be here conversing for the next millennium, but in another world we might be cracking on with other stuff, so, y’know, ask away.’ Colin couldn’t help himself from beaming with anticipation, because he was especially proud of this latest rescue.

Stefan chose his questions sparingly. He had so much more to ask, but these were topmost in his mind. ‘OK… so: why me? Why not someone else instead? What’s happened to my dad? And Bandersnatch?’

‘All very good questions,’ mused Colin, liking how his potential protégé was already taking in the multiple options and consequences. ‘Why did I choose you? Because you’re talented, and I like you. I think we’re possibly going to be kindred spirits. In this timeline, at least.

‘Your dad… well, in one version, he’s still getting the Frosties down for you every day and doing a crap Tony the Tiger impression. And Bandersnatch. Which version of events do you want to hear?’

‘All of them,’ Stefan said immediately, without his usual guardedness.

‘Well, it was a success. Or a failure. It got rapturous reviews. Or it didn’t. That wasn’t the point. You can create it again. Or you can bin it completely. You can even make it as a multi-player remix. Whatever you like. **Now** do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ affirmed Stefan. ‘No more control.’

Colin merely nodded, and pointed at an inscription above the room’s exit doors: ‘ _If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.’_

‘I know that quote!’ said Stefan quickly; the eager pupil. ‘It’s Aldous Huxley, right?’

‘Well, yeah.’ demurred Colin. ‘Huxley, via William Blake. But that’s splitting hairs. Get yourself settled in. We’ll have worlds of time to talk later.’

Stefan lingered a moment under the inscription before leaving with Kitty. His perception was finally clear; not funnelled by prescriptive pathways. He was no longer spiralling. He was free.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to the ‘Bandersnatch’ poster for the spiralling theme, plus a few films/books for ideas: the Matrix trilogy (the scenes when they free Neo from the Matrix; the Architect scenes a bit I guess) and a mess of other influences on this fic including ‘1984’ and ‘The Truman Show’. All of them have in common the ideas of Program And Control, and real vs. constructed worlds.


End file.
